Where do we begin? First we need to identify what the current level of maturity our social IT is. Then we can determine how the culture of your organization will handle any changes to it. There will definitely be differences based on the average demographic of the employees, the size of your organization, as well as the industry you are working in.
The next step will be to see if there is a current social media policy of any kind, and understand what it is about. If we do not have one we should get one established, even in its simplest form. We will need to differentiate how Social media is used outside our organization as well as internally. Depending on where you are Marketing may have a defined and regularly executed an external social media strategy, while your internal Social IT may not exist or may be limited.
We have to decide what we plan to get out of your Social IT. In keeping things simple we might want a vehicle to share knowledge, known issues, how-to’s and things of that nature. This may allow the Service Desk to deal with more complex issues and incidents. Keep in mind “you can only manage what you measure”. Before we communicate to your stakeholders you want to assure them that there is some gain or ROI on what we are doing. Even if the Social IT we are implementing is simply to knowledge share, there is going to be a gain in some aspect. As a result of this enhancement the number of requests for information to the service desk may decrease. This statistic can be further quantified by a customer survey which indicates that the level of service has improved. From a dollars and cents aspect we don’t have someone responding to the same questions day after day which reflect some cost savings. Our customers are happier and so is your budget
Now that we have asked ourselves why, who and how, we want to ensure that our process is in place and understood so we can determine when we will turn on our Social IT. Once everything is lined up we can return to the stakeholders with the plan which should include the communication plan for your target audience. This will outline the policy for use as well as what we are trying to achieve. Our social IT can quickly take a life of its own so it’s important to balance the managing the information while not stifling activity to share information. We need to ensure we have a way to manage any feedback as well as ensuring that we review the state of things regularly to tweak where necessary.
Keeping things simple, and reviewing regularly our progress and maturity in the program will ensure continued success
Labels: Social IT